In Adolescence, Secondhand, Francisco Delgado offers flashes of boyhood through a subtle dissection of class, race, and the failure of American suburban dreams. Houses burn and firecrackers pop while children navigate the ever-present violences that float within their lives. The writing is succinct and fantastical -- Delgado poignantly renders a world of ache, wonder, and longing onto the page.

Both stumbling and sure, Delgado's narrator Chris strives to reconcile a cultural menagerie of TV shows and wrestling heroes with the blurred reality of friendship, family, and self. These stories are tightly crafted and quietly crushing: within them, we join Chris and bear witness to a multitude of griefs, and the joys hidden and discovered in their core.

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